


Won't You Stop and Remember Me

by karyatid



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-04 02:06:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12760902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karyatid/pseuds/karyatid
Summary: The morning after they take down the Death Star, Wedge wakes up in bed with Luke Skywalker.





	Won't You Stop and Remember Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ancslove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ancslove/gifts).



The morning after they take down the Death Star, Wedge wakes up in bed with Luke Skywalker. Luke's taken the blanket, and is plastered to Wedge's side, snoring faintly. Wedge stares at the ceiling trying to feel happy, or content, anything but hollow. He'd felt the same yesterday, during the celebration, as he tried to smile and got drunk too fast. The details of how they got here are a little blurred, but he remembers thinking Luke looked lonely in the middle of all the exuberance, and that it had seemed like a good idea to kiss him. 

He turns on his side to lie facing Luke, looks at him in the grey morning light. His hair's a mess and Wedge finds himself wanting to reach out and smooth it. He knows they're about the same age, but he still thinks Luke looks awfully young, like this, sleeping like someone without worries.

"Hey," Wedge says, poking Luke in the shoulder. Luke makes a protesting noise, but opens his eyes. He blinks, taking in Wedge, the narrow bunk, blushes, and runs his fingers through his hair, which only succeeds in making it messier.

"Sleep well?" Wedge asks, putting on his most innocent impression. Luke looks faintly alarmed, tries to sit up, notices he's not wearing anything beneath the blanket, and promptly blushes even more. 

"I, um," he says and Wedge snorts and gives him a push. Luke smiles, easy and friendly, and Wedge feels something twist a little inside. 

"C'mon, let's get some breakfast. They'll be on us to get patrols running soon, and trust me, it's no fun on a empty stomach."

"Patrols?" Luke says, eyes wide. He's frozen in the middle of putting his shirt on, which is more than a little distracting. "In X-wings?"

"Just short sublight runs," Wedge explains. "While we're prepping for evacuation." Luke still looks delighted, like he can't believe his luck, getting to fly a perfectly boring patrol run. 

"We'll go up together, right?" he says, and Wedge realises with a sinking feeling that it's too late now, he'll never be able to keep Luke at a distance, he'll never want to. 

"Sure," he says. "We'll go up together." 

\--

Wedge has to pause in front of the Med Bay doors, feeling his anger simmering just below the surface. Up til now he'd thought it didn't really matter any longer, that Luke hadn't died like he'd thought, and tried to come to terms with, but instead had decided to disappear on them.

"Look what the rancor dragged in," Wedge says as he steps inside, and then freezes when Luke turns to look at him. It's not just the bruising on his face, or the heavy shadows under his eyes, there's an emptiness in his eyes that looks all wrong. He'd quickly accepted that Luke is back, it never even occurred to him to worry he might be changed by whatever he'd been through. In hindsight, it's possible he'd been a little too focused on his own anger.

"Hey Wedge," Luke says, a beat too late, like they're on a glitchy subspace comm instead of in the same room. He smiles, but something makes it slide off his face, and Wedge feels stupid for letting his anger show. 

He clears his throat and forces himself to walk over and sit by Luke's bedside. He looks worse up close, sitting hunched over, keeping his injured arm close to his body. "You, uh, alright?" he says, not the worst thing he's blurted out by a sickbed, but still inane enough to make him wince internally. 

"Yeah, sure," Luke says, again a fraction too late, turning his eyes too the prosthetic hand he's been fitted with, slowly opening and closing his fist. His eyes seem to be focused somewhere much more distant than the hand in his lap.

"I thought you died," Wedge says, tense silence drawing the words out of him, then immediately regrets it, both bringing it up on the first place and speaking in first person. It's not what he thought that matters, he's just one of the squadron. Saying it like that makes it sound like he's got some kind of personal claim on Luke

That's not how things are, not what they are to each other. They're squadron mates, that's it. That they sometimes end up in bed (or more often, pressed up against a wall) isn't something they ever talked about. All pilots know the feeling, when you're shaky with adrenaline after a near-miss, or need the touch of another being to distract you from thinking about those who didn't make it back. And everyone knows that one day you might be the one who doesn't make it back. Wedge has been very careful not to think about the fact that Luke's the only one he's gone to for that kind of comfort, or that he's pretty sure it's the same for Luke.

"Sorry," Luke says, still staring at his hand. "I'm sorry, I." He trails off, lost inside himself again.

Before he can think better of it, Wedge reaches to cover Luke's hand with his own. It's only after he's already done it that he realises what a colossal mistake he's made; he had to lean over the bed to reach and they're suddenly very close, too close. Luke turns to look at him, big sad eyes, and Wedge feels his mouth go dry.

He kisses Luke's temple, feeling more awkward like this than he's ever done with his clothes off. Luke makes a sound that's halfway between a sob and a sigh and when Wedge runs his fingertips over Luke's forehead he closes his eyes. 

"Try to get some sleep," he says, before leaning in again to kiss Luke. It shouldn't make his heart beat so fast, just a soft kiss. 

Luke opens his eyes again when Wedge draws back, probably because he's a stubborn shit who can't do as he's told. Wedge sits down in the chair beside the bed. When he reaches for Luke's hand again Luke turns in bed at the same time and Wedge catches hold of his forearm, right where the prosthesis overlaps the scarring. The scars aren't really visible, but he can feel them. Luke's breath catches, but he doesn't draw his arm back. 

"So," Wedge clears his throat, tries to remember what normal conversation felt like between them. "Squadron's missed you."

Luke smiles as Wedge launches into a recap of what the Rogue's been up to these past months, not quite his old smile, but a shadow of it. He falls asleep pretty soon, and Wedge sits by his bedside until he starts to nod off himself. 

\--

They regroup on the forest moon, a small gathering of rebels that seem mostly shocked by their great victory, getting the celebration going in fits and starts. Wedge wanders around, dodging people who want to shake his hand, until he spots Chewie, who leads him to where Han's explaining to Lando how they got the shield down. 

"Where's Luke?" Lando asks Han. 

"Oh, he went up to the, y'know," Han points vaguely to the sky, "Death Star. Leia says he's alright," he adds when he sees Lando go wide-eyed with worry. 

Wedge thought he'd died once, when his X-wing took a hit and went dark, the searing noise from the comms blowing out leaving compact silence behind. In the long minutes it took for the backup system to kick in he hadn't even been afraid, just felt empty. This is the same kind of emptiness, though he can still see the clearing in the woods they're standing in, see Lando, who's got Han by the shoulders, nearly shaking him. They're still talking, he realises, but the fragments he catches don't mean anything to him. ( _What do you mean, her brother?_ ) 

He sits down on a log, feeling like he might throw up, or maybe faint, and it doesn't matter, nothing matters. It plays in front of his eyes, again and again, firing and hitting the reactor core, the blinding light when the Death Star exploded. He doesn't notice Leia until she sits down beside him, doesn't notice night falling until he feels the heat from the fire on his face and looks up at the dark skies.

When he sees Luke approaching the fire, Wedge's first panicked thought is that he's seeing Luke's ghost. The firelight makes him look unreal, his face pale against his black clothes. Only his blinding smile when he sees Leia makes him realise it's really Luke, he made it back.

Wedge gets up on stiff legs when Luke comes up to him, gives him a clumsy hug. "I thought," he says, then stops talking, because he wants to run his hands all over Luke and he's suddenly incapable of talking at the same time. His hands are shaking. Luke just smiles, looking delighted, like it's a pleasant surprise to have Wedge being so demonstrative in front of everyone. "Han said you were up there, on the," he chokes on the word. "And i thought. I made the shot."

Luke's face softens as he picks up on the meaning in Wedge's jumbled words. "It's ok," he says, taking Wedge's hands in his. "I got off in time, nothing happened, I'm alright." He shifts his hand to Wedge's neck, pulling him forward so their foreheads touch. 

\--

The morning after they take down the Death Star, Wedge wakes up in bed with Luke Skywalker. He's still half in his flight suit and he hurts all over, because the bed is really a thermal blanket on the wooden floor in one of the little creatures' huts. Luke's lying on his side, facing Wedge. The blanket is slipping off his shoulder and Wedge reaches out to push it down. 

The marks stand out on Luke's pale skin, black-purple and lightning-shaped, reminders of the evil that nearly took Luke from him. Wedge traces one carefully, runs his fingers along Luke's ribs, feels Luke shivering under his touch. 

"You came back," he says, hoping Luke hears the all the things he wants to say. 

"Of course I did," Luke says, "I'll always come back to you."

It's a promise he can't make, but Wedge knows what he means by it. "I'll hold you to it, Skywalker," he says.

They lie still for a while, listening to the sound of the rebels waking up, C-3PO passes by their hut, making his displeasure about something known to one of the little creatures, whose answer Wedge doesn't understand, but he knows exasperation when he hears it. 

Wedge pushes himself up to lean on his elbow, groaning. "Better check on the patrols," he says, "there's bound to be Imp stragglers coming our way." He can't resist leaning over to kiss Luke. "Wanna come with?"

"Sure," Luke says, making no move whatsoever to get up, instead dragging Wedge into a hug that sends him sprawled on top of Luke. "Let's go up together."

End


End file.
